"MOTHER?" Rainbow gasped. "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute… what's going on here? Didn't she tell us her mother was… well… dead?" She looked over to her friends, who were just as confused as she was, I could tell.
"M-mom?" Applejack tried to get a hold of herself. "It… it IS you, isn't it? I mean, this ain't just some sort of setup to trick me, right? Yer no changeling… or magic illusion or…"
"Applejack!" I firmly grasped my daughter's hooves. "Look at me. I am here, really. This is no trick. And I wasn't dead, not really. I was just… gone. But now I'm back and I'm standing here, right in front of you. I can't really tell you the how and why, but… it's me! Really!"
"Y… you're back? Honestly? And you… you'll stay, right? You're not gonna die or disappear or whatever again and leave me alone like ya did before… right?" She looked at me through shimmering eyes.
I saw so much in these eyes at the moment. I saw happiness, confusion, hope, years of suppressed pain that was coming to the surface. But I also saw fear… fear that this happiness would suddenly disappear again. I knew Applejack was a strong pony, she always had been, even when she was a filly. But I had no idea if she could live through that despair another time.
That was the reason why I didn't want to tell her I was here. I didn't want her to feel the same pain again, the pain she felt when she lost me. But now I was here, in front of her. And she saw me.
And I couldn't possibly abandon her ever again.
So I smiled. "Don't worry, Applejack. I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying… I'm staying right here, with you."
"Oh Mom…" she sniffled again. I saw how much she tried to fight the tears this time. She didn't want to show her friends the softer, more vulnerable Applejack. But in the end, she succumbed to her feelings and she hugged me once again. "I'm so glad yer back."
"Awwww, that's sooo sweet…" the yellow pegasus (whose name I still didn't catch) gushed. Next to her, fountains of tears were streaming out of Pinkie's eyes at the sweet scene in front of her. Even Rainbow Dash, who I had assessed as a tough, tomboy kind of girl, quickly wiped something out of her eyes.
"J-just something in my eye…" she mumbled.
"What in Equestria is going on here?" I turned my head at this sudden, new voice. Which was a bit difficult with my daughter hanging from my neck.
Everypony must have heard the sound of my eyes popping out of their sockets. I couldn't even gasp in surprise. I just stared at the purple pony with the star cutie mark. And the horn. And the wings.
I was looking at an alicorn. How could there be an alicorn? There was only one alicorn in all of Equestria. And Princess Celestia wasn't a pony you could just run into in the middle of a street on a perfectly normal day. But this was no costume either. This was a real alicorn.
"Applejack?" I said.
Applejack looked up at me. "Yeah, Mom?"
I pointed my hoof across the street. "There's an alicorn standing there. Why is there an alicorn standing there?"
"What?" She looked around and then smiled. "Oh, that's just Twilight. She's one of my closest friends."
I blinked. "You are friends… with an alicorn."
She nodded. "Sure am. Come, lemme introduce you to her. In fact, lemme introduce you to all my friends." With the biggest grin, she looked at the assembled ponies. "Girls? I want y'all to meet my Mom… Epona Apple! And Mom, these are Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle." One after another, she pointed at the two pegasi, the pink bouncing earth pony and the alicorn.
"Very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Apple," Fluttershy smiled.
"Hello there!" Pinkie waved.
"Pinkie, we already met her," Rainbow sighed.
"Oh yeah," Pinkie giggled.
For the whole time, the alicorn Applejack just introduced to me as Twilight just stood there, looking at me. Now she was tilting her head. "Your… mother? Applejack, that seems pretty… implausible."
I saw how my daughter gave the alicorn a disgruntled look. "Whaddya mean, implausible? Don't gimme implausible, Twi. This is my mother. Why wouldn't she be?"
"Well, I'm sorry to tell you this, but your mother is, well… dead. Have you considered she might be a doppelganger or worse, a changeling?" I wanted to feel annoyed at the alicorn, but I could understand her skepticism. On top of that, she was an alicorn. You wouldn't disagree with an alicorn.
As it turned out, my daughter did not agree with me on that point. She shouted: "You stop there right now, Twilight! Do ya think I wouldn't recognize my own mother? She acts the same, she talks the same and she looks the same! Well, except for her cutie mark, but... that's not important!"
"Applejack…" Twilight hesitated a bit, carefully choosing her next words. "But that is exactly what a changeling does. They try their best to imitate the person they turn into. And you said it yourself, her cutie mark isn't the same. So it could very well be a changeling that made a mistake with the transformation. If you could just let me do a magic scan of her aura, then we can tell for sure…"
"Not happening, Twi," Applejack shouted. "You keep yer magic away from my Mom, you hear? She's my mother and that's final!" There it was again, that Apple stubbornness I knew so well from her and her father. With a sigh, I removed myself from Applejack's hug and reassuringly patted her backside. "It's all right, honey. She can do her scan if she thinks it's important."
"But it's not!" Applejack protested. "She shouldn't need to prove that you're a changeling. I can tell either way."
"I know that. But let's just do it to reassure your friends, okay?"
Applejack didn't seem to like that idea at all, but she didn't protest anymore either. I slowly walked up to her alicorn friend. I was a bit unsure how to act. Was I supposed to bow down? The only alicorn that was supposed to exist was our one and only ruler, Princess Celestia. This couldn't be her daughter, right? To be on the safe side, I gave her a small bow.
She seemed a bit uncomfortable at the gesture. "No need for that," she said. "I may be a princess, but I'm also just a normal citizen of Ponyville, like everypony else." So I was right. She was a princess, even though a humble one. So many questions were going through my head. Did Celestia marry? Did we suddenly have a king?
I raised my head. "Do what you have to do, your Highness. I am willing to prove that I have no evil intent. I was an honest citizen of Equestria once, and I plan on becoming one, once again." I smiled at Applejack, and she quickly put her hat in front of her face, to hide another incoming surge of emotions.
She nodded. "Then please hold still for a moment. This won't hurt at all." She brought her horn close to my body and let it shine in a sparkling aura. For a moment, my whole body was glowing in the same color and I felt a slight tingle.
"This is odd…" Twilight muttered. "I feel a strange magical energy within your body. But… I can tell it's not your own. There is no evil or dark magic anywhere in you."
"I told you so!" Applejack said. "I told you this was my Mom."
"It seems so. She is definitely a regular earth pony, even though I can't quite place that unusual magic within her… doesn't feel like anything I felt before." She dropped her spell and gave me a welcoming smile. "Either way, I am glad you are the pony my friend Applejack claimed you to be. I am very honored to finally make your acquaintance, Mrs. Apple. On behalf of the Equestrian throne, I welcome you back in Equestria."
"Thank you. I am very glad to be back," I smiled. Then I ran back to give my daughter another hug, while her friends were cheering at us.
That is, until Rainbow Dash stopped everypony's cheering with a cough. "Sorry to interrupt, but… I almost forgot we still got a problem at hoof. The spa? Rarity? Your friend?"
"What are you talking about, Rainbow?" Twilight asked.
"Oh, that's right!" Pinkie gasped. "Rarity and Miss Eporomani-Applejack-Mom's friend went into the spa and never came out. Hours ago!"
I scolded myself for forgetting that for a moment. The reunion with my daughter almost made me forget about Link. "She's right… from the description she gave me, my companion Link was with her."
"Link's in trouble?" Navi gasped. I also almost forgot she was still there. "We need to help him."
"The spa?" Twilight asked in confusion. "Why would the spa mean trouble? You guys are worrying too much. They probably lost track of time or something. This is Rarity we are talking about. You know how she is at the spa."
"Yes, but we are also talking about Link," I said. "No offense, your Highness… but Link is a very dependable friend. He wouldn't spend hours in a store while there are other, more important things to do. And last time I saw him, he was searching for our fairy friend, Navi. You didn't run into him yet, did you?" I asked Navi.
She shook her head. "No, I didn't. I was with Fluttershy the whole time. Dear Nayru, what are we going to do?"
"I know only one thing to do," Applejack said. She winked at me. "C'mon, Mom. Let's go find yer friend."
The door opened slowly and a cute yellow snout pushed its way inside. "Hello? Aloe? Lotus? Are you there? We hate to be a bother, but we're here for Rarity…"
"Careful, Fluttershy," Applejack said as she walked past her friend. "We don't know what we're up against."
"Yeah, maybe it's a trap," Rainbow Dash nodded. "Like in Daring Do and the Shimmering Sphinx… Book 4, chapter 3, when Daring ventures into this abandoned casino and finds herself surrounded by…"
"Would you two stop that?" Twilight groaned. "This is the Ponyville Day Spa, not the Temple of Argus. I'm sure there's nothing here we have to be afraid of."
I pushed my way past them and looked around. "I don't know," I said. "Seems awfully quiet for a normal spa. No receptionist, no employees. No customers."
"Maybe… maybe it's a holiday," Twilight said, but her argument sounded pretty weak.
"Twilight, out of all ponies, with all your schedules and charts, I assumed you would know the different Ponyville holidays." Pinkie shook her head disapprovingly. "There is no scheduled party planned for the next two weeks."
"But I don't understand this," Fluttershy muttered. "Where are Aloe and Lotus? Where is Rarity? I hope they're okay."
"I'm… I'm sure Link would protect them if they were in any danger," Navi said, but she sounded uncertain herself.
"Let's take a look around," Twilight said. "Rainbow, you and Pinkie check the sauna. Fluttershy… you're with me. Let's search in the bath and massage rooms. And Applejack…"
"I'm with my Mom," Applejack said. I smiled. Now that I was back, she didn't want to let me out of her sight.
Twilight nodded. "Okay… you check the office, then." And we all spread out.
I entered a regular-looking office with a desk, a couple of chairs, one window and a big mirror hanging on the wall. I checked the window… it was shut tight. And there were no traces around it. No pony had left through here.
"Mom?" Applejack asked. "Can I talk to ya fer a sec?"
I should have known she would have wanted to speak to me in private. "Sure, honey," I said and turned around. "What's on your mind?"
"I… I've been thinkin'," she said. "And I don't really know what's going on. Suddenly, you're back… and it's like you've never been dead in the first place. But now you have that fairy thing with ya and that other friend and everything's crazy and… I just wanna know, where were you? What happened to you?"
"Applejack, I… I'm not who I used to be," I sighed. "I mean, I'm still me, but… I'm not just a farmpony anymore. I'm an adventurer. I met my new friends in a faraway land and helped them save it from a… a very evil man."
She raised an eyebrow. "I'm not a lil filly anymore, Mom. You can give me the hard facts. Was it some sort of evil overlord guy?"
I nodded.
"Black magic?"
"Yes."
"Not very nice?"
"Eeyup!"
"Wanted to take over the world?"
"Of course!"
She sighed. "One of those guys, huh? Sounds a lot like that shadowy king we dealt with in the Crystal Empire."
Now it was my turn to raise an eyebrow. "Shadow king? Crystal Empire?"
"Long story, Mom. Let's just say yer not the only one with her share of adventures. So, how did ya deal with Darklord McEvilStallion? Blast him with some sort of love or harmony magic stuff?"
I didn't try to explain that Ganondorf was not a pony at all, so I just replied: "No… my friend Link rammed a sword through his skull."
She grimaced. "Sheesh. Sounds kinda grim, dontcha think?"
"Well, he wasn't going to sit down to have tea with us and discuss our differences," I frowned. "Sometimes, extreme measures must be taken, Applejack. I learned that all too well on my journey with Navi and Link. And about my cutie mark… it must have something to do with what happened to me over there. It is… a very important symbol for the people who live in that country."
"Well, wallop my withers," Applejack said with a smirk. "My Mom's a national hero… who would have thought?"
"I actually just helped, honey. Link did most of the work," I said with a blush.
"Don't sell yerself short. I'm mighty proud to have such an awesome Mom." She rubbed her head against mine, and I returned the gesture. That's when I noticed something.
"Applejack… take a look at that mirror. The frame is all crooked."
She took a look. "So? What about it?"
I knew enough about Link's experience with old dungeons and temples to realize what this meant. "If I'm not mistaken, this is…" I fumbled along the mirror frame, until something clicked and the mirror slid sideways. "A hidden passage."
"Whoa nelly!" Applejack gasped. "That's… mighty impressive, Mom. Let's tell the others."
We went back to the foyer, where we met up with the others. "Pinkie found some icky green stuff on the sauna floor," Rainbow reported.
Pinkie nodded. "I took a lick and it made me feel all dizzy."
"Pinkie, don't lick up strange substances you know nothing about," Twilight said. "Well, we found nothing. All of the rooms were empty, and there was stuff lying around everywhere, as if somepony had left the building in a hurry. What about you?" She looked at me and Applejack.
Applejack smirked. "My Mom found a secret passage." That's just like her, to brag with her mother's awesomeness.
"I knew it!" Rainbow shouted. "There IS an ancient temple down below!"
"Rainbow Dash, NOTHING in the history of Ponyville suggests that there was EVER any sort of underground temple constructed here," Twilight sighed. "But let's take a look."
We showed them the entrance. Together, we followed the stairs leading down into a dark chamber… but it was completely dark. Twilight illuminated the room with her horn, and we saw it was completely empty. No other exit either.
Twilight shuddered. "This place …I feel a very dark and chilly aura in here. Somepony must have used some very dark and powerful magic down here."
"Be careful, there might be traps," Rainbow muttered.
"She's in full Daring Do mode," Applejack told me with a roll of her eyes.
"What's a Daring Do?" I quietly asked her.
"Oh, just some books Twi and Rainbow like. Just don't ask Rainbow about them if you don't want to hear a speech that goes on for hours."
I simply nodded and started looking through the room. It felt strange… almost as if the world had completely turned around and I had become the hero traversing the dungeon and Link was the… um… stallion in distress I had to save.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEK!" Fluttershy suddenly yelped. "Wh-what is thaaaaat?"
Everypony turned to face her. "What's wrong?" I asked.
Fluttershy pointed at something at the ground, a dark shape lying there. Navi flew closer and her bright aura drove the darkness away a bit. "Those are… skeletons! Pony skeletons…"
Fluttershy covered her eyes with a frightened cry. The others stared at the bones with horror and disbelief. "The bones of dead ponies… in a secret room underneath the Ponyville Day Spa?" Applejack muttered. "That's… that's morbid, y'all."
"B-but I don't understand!" Twilight sounded like she was starting to panic. "How could this have happened? Why didn't I know any of this?"
I took a closer look at the skeletons. "Looks like they've been here for a long time. Several months, at least." Fluttershy's whimpering intensified.
"You… you mean these are dead… dead ponies?" a very quiet and distraught voice next to me spoke up. I took a look and saw to my surprise that it was Pinkie… but the usually chipper party pony had changed a lot. Instead of spreading optimism, she was an image of sadness and despair. Her poofy hair had gone completely flat and even her colorful coat seemed to be drained of its brightness.
"Let's… let's get out of here," Applejack muttered. "Let's get Pinkie and Fluttershy out of here." I nodded in agreement. Whatever adventures these ponies had lived through, it was obvious that they had never encountered true death before. And while the others were disturbed, Pinkie and Fluttershy took it the hardest. Since there was nothing down here that could give us any help, any sort of clue, we just turned around and walked back towards the stairs.
That's when I heard the rattling. I froze. I knew that sound. I heard it a million times before… but that couldn't be! That was back in Hyrule! This was Equestria!
I turned my head… and sure enough, the skeletons were slowly rising to their hooves. Inside their empty eye sockets, a sinister red light started glowing. There were eight of them… Stalfos! They were pony versions of the Hyrule skeleton warriors, but I knew it was them.
The ponies let out screams of fright. "Wh-what are those things?" Rainbow Dash gasped.
"Undead ponies…" Twilight muttered. "Necromancy… one of the forbidden arts. Celestia, how could I not have known this? They are forbidden for a reason."
"Stand back…" I said. "I'll handle them." Even though Link had done most of the fighting, I still had seen him confront evil creatures on an almost daily basis. And sometimes, I even fought at his side when we were ambushed on the Hylian plains at night. Also, I was the only pony in Equestria with any sort of experience with monsters from Hyrule.
With a loud whinny, I charged the first Stalfos before it had any chance of attacking. It wasn't enough to completely defeat it, but it was flung against the wall, where it would need some time to reassemble itself. Another Stalfos let out a screech and tried stabbing me with its horn… it was the skeleton of a unicorn. Good thing they could never use their magic in undeath. I dodged the attack and let him taste my hind legs. I felt the shattering of bone under my hooves, and the creature's skull flew off its body. I tried to face the next opponent, but I knew instantly I wouldn't be fast enough to dodge the attack of the third Stalfos when it lowered its horn and charged at me.
"YEEE-HAWW!" Before it reached me, however, Applejack came running and attacked it with a full body slam. With a rattling sound, it was thrown into one of the other skeletons.
"Y'all leave my Mom alone, you rattling piles of bone, ya hear me?" she shouted. In the next moment, Rainbow Dash and Twilight were at her side and helped her fight off the undead ponies with magic blasts, kicks and dive attacks from above.
I was very surprised… both at how well the three of them fought and that they managed to shrug off their terror that fast. Applejack had told me they had fought some sort of enemy before, but I never expected them to be this formidable in combat… well, except for maybe the alicorn princess. Not wanting to be outdone by my daughter and her friends, I joined them in battle.
I noticed too late how one of the Stalfos, after pulling its bones back together from one of my attacks, wasn't rejoining the battle, but instead turned around to search for an easier prey… and that prey were the still shivering forms of Fluttershy and Pinkie cowering near the staircase. I swore under my breath and ran to help them… but found myself blocked by another skeleton. So I could only watch helplessly as the other Stalfos approached the scared pair.
Fluttershy pulled her mane over her eyes and sobbed, but Pinkie… she looked at her crying friend for a moment, then at the approaching Stalfos.
"You… you're making Fluttershy cry…" she muttered. Suddenly, a very stern expression appeared on her face. "Nopony, and I mean NOPONY makes Fluttershy cry!" she shouted as her hair was suddenly back to its former poofiness. She jumped to her feet, and her hooves reached up into her hair… and somehow, pulled a cannon out of there, a cannon that was almost as big as Pinkie herself.
"Taste my party cannon, you… you unfunny, unsmiling, unhappy bone baddies!" Pinkie shouted as she shot a burst of confetti and streamers out of the cannon… a burst apparently so powerful that the Stalfos broke apart in a shower of fragments.
One last blow of my hoof to my opponent's skull finished the battle. We had won.
"Fluttershy, Pinkie!" Rainbow shouted as she flew to her friends. "Are you okay?"
"Y-y-yes," Fluttershy stuttered, obviously still shaken. "P-Pinkie protected me." And she smiled up at her friend, eyes full with gratitude.
"But that was intense," Applejack panted heavily. "I've never fought these kinds of monsters before."
"We have," I said and exchanged a look with Navi, who nodded. "But not in Equestria."
"This is bad," Twilight muttered. "Really bad. I must inform Princess Celestia about this… and do a lot of research. And…"
"I think we have a much more urgent problem," I said. "Our friends are gone and we last saw them going into a building whose basement was swarming with the undead. The question remains: Where are they?"
Rarity moaned as she slowly opened her eyes. "Heavens… my head hurts," she muttered. "I feel like after one of Applejack's late night cider parties." She looked around. "Where… where am I?"
She saw Link sitting next to her "Hey, good to see you're feeling better," he said. "And to answer your question: We're in a cage."
He was right. They were imprisoned in a big, iron cage with a heavy padlock hanging from it. The cage was standing on a wooden cart that was slowly moving along a desolate forest path. Through the trees, they could see the evening sky. When Rarity looked ahead, she saw that Aloe and Lotus were sitting in the front of the cart, which was pulled by a pair of strangely bulky-looking ponies.
"Aloe! Lotus! What is the meaning of this? I demand you let us out at once!" Rarity shouted.
"Oh, Miss Rarity, you've woken up!" Aloe said with a smile as she turned around. "Good, I was worried for a while. Sorry for the inconvenience, but we just can't allow you to run to Princess Twilight and tell her about what happened at the spa. Oh, and Mr. Link? Don't bother looking for your sword, we put it somewhere safe."
Link realized that his sword, along with the rest of his equipment, was gone. He couldn't see it anywhere. "Didn't you want to kill her?" he asked with a frown. "Why change your mind now?"
"There was… a change of plans," Lotus said. "Make no mistake, we were ready to carry out the order given to us, but then… we found out something surprising. Something about our dear old friend Miss Rarity, something we would have never guessed before. We told our master about it and he told us to leave Ponyville and bring the both of you somewhere safer."
"Your… master?" Link asked, confused. "Who is your master? It can't be Ganondorf, he's gone."
"Do you honestly think we would tell you such a crucial piece of information that easily, Hero of Time?" Lotus frowned. "You'll meet him soon enough… if and when he desires to see you. For now, we are meeting with a couple of… let's say accomplices. Be thankful you both are still alive."
Rarity sighed deeply. "I don't understand. I've known you for years and suddenly, you two seem like complete strangers."
"You probably don't know them as well as I do," Link said. "They are the twin witches, Twinrova… deception and deceit is what they do and enjoy. They work only for the evil king, Ganondorf… at least, that's what they did when I last saw them. All they wanted to do was to make sure he was the ruler of my home country. And they stopped at nothing to accomplish that. They are a pair of cruel, horrible, ugly witches."
"Ugly? Now that stung!" Aloe gasped mockingly. "Say, Hero of Time, did you take a good look at us? Do we look ugly to you? Do you think this is a disguise? No, this is who we are now. The old witches are dead, remember? It was you who delivered the final blow. You killed us!"
Rarity looked at Link. "Is… is that true? Did you really… kill them?"
"I did what I had to do, Rarity," Link shouted. "Don't let them fool you, they were doing horrible stuff back then."
"It's all true, Miss Rarity," Aloe sighed. "We did a lot of awful things in our old lives. And I won't apologize for them. But after we died, we were reborn as ponies."
Rarity swallowed. That was a lot to take in. "But you don't have to do this," she softly said after a while. "If what you're saying is true, then your old life is over. You don't have to do all these horrible things anymore. Just go back to your old lives at the spa. I'll tell the princesses you had a change of heart. I'm sure they'll understand."
Aloe hesitated. "I… wish I could, Miss Rarity," she sighed. "Truly, I wish I could just go back to being a regular earth pony in Ponyville. But things have changed…"
"Be quiet, sister!" Lotus snapped. "You're right, things have changed. These lives we lived… they were fake lives. Our master showed us our past, he knows what we did. He is the only way out of this for us. He is our salvation! Be a bit more grateful!"
Aloe sighed and turned away from the cage. "You're right… I'm sorry."
Link snorted. "You're not getting away with this…"
Lotus snickered. "But we already have. We left Ponyville far behind, and if anyone tries to search our old hiding place, we left a nice little surprise there. I wish I could be there to see it. But tomorrow morning, we'll be at our new hideout. I just hope our three-handed friend has prepared everything for our arrival… and the ritual."
"Ritual? Wh-what kind of ritual?" Rarity asked.
"Oh, that's the reason why we didn't kill you yet," Lotus smiled. "You see, we are looking for the powers of the sages of this kingdom. And you, you are the Sage of Generosity! Congratulations, Miss Rarity!"